News articles tagged with "earthquakes"

Fredric ("Fred") Raichlen, professor emeritus of civil and mechanical engineering in Caltech's Division of Engineering and Applied Science, passed away on December 13, 2014. He was an expert in coastal engineering whose pioneering studies of tsunami mechanics have led to standards for designing tsunami-resistant structures that have saved lives around the world.

A pioneer in the use of seismic anisotropy—variations in the velocities of seismic waves as they move at different angles through materials—to study the earth's interior, and a researcher whose work helped advance our understanding of the composition, structure, and dynamics of the earth and of earth-like planets, Don L. Anderson passed away on December 2, 2014.

Fredric ("Fred") Raichlen, professor emeritus of civil and mechanical engineering at Caltech, passed away on December 13, 2014. He was 82 years old. Raichlen was an expert on the mechanics of tsunamis, the waves created by underwater earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and other geologic events.

In the typical textbook picture, volcanoes, such as those that are forming the Hawaiian islands, erupt when magma gushes out as narrow jets from deep inside Earth. But that picture is wrong, according to a new study.

This summer, Caltech junior Kevin Li has been working with computational scientists and seismologists to refine the Community Seismic Network (CSN) by developing a machine-learning system that can accurately estimate the magnitude of an earthquake within seconds of its detection.

Since the magnitude 6.7 Northridge earthquake 20 years ago, researchers at Caltech have learned much more about where earthquakes are likely to happen, and how danger to human life and damage to property might be mitigated when they do occur.

What makes an earthquake go off? Why are earthquakes so difficult to forecast? Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Geophysics Nadia Lapusta gives us a close-up look at the moving parts, as it were, at 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, February 13, 2013, in Caltech's Beckman Auditorium. Admission is free.